Education About Asia: Online Archives

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Essay, Resources

Chinese Foreign Direct Investment: Looking Abroad from an Emerging Economy

by Ronald Kalafsky

Foreign direct investment (FDI) can occur when a firm either establishes operations or purchases a controlling interest in the business operations of a company in another country. Companies often engage in FDI for three straightforward reasons: to grow their sales, to expand their geographical market range, or to take advantage of the firm’s own assets (e.g., brand name, technologies). If a firm is to increase its revenue, domestic sales are often not enough, and the company is required to exp...

Resources, Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Asian Visual and Performing Arts–Part I

by Judith S. Ames

VISUAL ARTS Asia, General The Art of Asia URL: http://www.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/introduction/ The collections of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese works of art have been added to this site, produced by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. From this introductory page, one can access the collections by culture,  period, or themes. There are thousands of objects, including 368 ukiyo-e and an extensive guide to Chinese ceramics. South and Southeast Asian Art URL: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah...

Feature Article

Contemporary Chinese Art: Uses and Reuses of the Past

by Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky

Contemporary artists in China are now free to make an array of different kinds of art. Artists, emerging from the limited forms of expression allowed during the second half of the twentieth century, are exploring their ancient traditions that were restricted during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) when the “four olds” (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas) were forbidden. A second source of inspiration is the breadth of Western global art that had also been strictly criti...

Feature Article

A Brief Introduction to Beijing Opera

by Ann L. Silverberg

Beijing opera is a colorful, spectacular performance art that dazzles, fascinates, and often puzzles foreigners. A quintessentially Chinese art form, its elaborate costumes and makeup, gestural and acrobatic stage movements, highly symbolic and stylized content, and unique musical style amaze and intrigue audiences. The art might be best thought of as a confluence of stylized patterns of dress, makeup, action, staging, text, and music (instrumental and vocal). Each of these parameters is the fru...

Feature Article

Performing Arts of Mongolia: Treasure of a Nomadic Culture

by Li Yulin, Sun Xiaoyan

The vast steppe of northern China has nurtured a brilliant and unsophisticated grassland culture, including the arts of the nomadic “horseback people” who reside on the steppe. A new form of arts came into being in order to adapt itself to the region’s natural environment and ecological system. Mongolian herdsmen have lived on the grasslands of northern China for many generations (Figure 3). They left a cultural legacy of romantic simplicity that is still revered today. However, real nomad...

Feature Article

Prodigy of Taiwan, Diva of Asia: Teresa Teng

by David B. Gordon

Teresa Teng (1953–1995) is the best-known and most beloved singer in the history of modern East Asia. Born on the island of Taiwan soon after it became the seat of the anti-Communist Republic of China (ROC), Teresa quickly emerged as a Mandarin pop sensation among overseas Chinese. In her early twenties, she proceeded to take Japan by storm as a surpassing singer of pensive Japanese ballads. By the end of the 1970s, in turn, her fame had spread far into the People’s Republic of China (PRC), ...

Feature Article

Familiar Story, Macbeth—New Context, Noh and Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood

by Minae Yamamoto Savas

[caption id="attachment_10162" align="alignleft" width="139"] Washizu (Macbeth). (Throne of Blood, ©1957 Toho Company)[/caption] This article explores the effects of Akira Kurosawa’s adoption of Noh conventions through an in depth analysis of Kumonosu-jō (Castle of the Spider’s Web, also known as Throne of Blood, ©1957 Toho Company), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Traditional Japanese Noh theater is an enigma to many students in other countries. Discussing the influence of N...

Feature Article

Which Buddha is This Anyway? Notes on Identifying the Enlightened Ones

by Frank L. Chance

For most American educators, the imagery of Christian, Jewish, and, to a lesser extent, Muslim religious art is relatively familiar. Not only are angels and devils instantly recognized, even when they appear in the context of Saturday Night Live, but many of us heard Bible stories growing up, and some could recite a whole litany of saints and other holy beings. However, in our globalizing times, images from other religions also appear more frequently than ever—particularly in museums and galle...

Feature Article

Asia, Shakespeare, and the World: Digital Resources for Teaching about Globalization

by Alexander C. Y. Huang

[caption id="attachment_10327" align="alignleft" width="245"] Promotional image for Chicken Rice War. © 2000 MediaCorp raintree Pictures Pte Ltd.[/caption] In the marooned rehearsal of a school play in an urban comedy, a stuttering student asks their drama coach if he could play Romeo. A young lady rolls her eyes and challenges her classmate: “What makes you think that you can play Romeo? You don’t have the looks, and you can’t even speak properly.” She is quick to point out that the...

Feature Article

Butter Diplomacy: Food and Drink as a Social Lubricant in Dutch East India Company Trade with Japan

by Michael Laver

Every year the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea brought roughly half a dozen Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) ships to Nagasaki, carrying a valuable cargo consisting mainly of various types of silk and other types of cloth, and also Southeast Asian luxury goods, European “rarities,” and foodstuffs such as sugar and spices. After these VOC ships unloaded their precious and varied cargo, negotiations would begin to determine the price of t...

Essay, Resources

East Asian International Relations: Peaceful and Stable for Centuries

by David C. Kang

How did international relations function in East Asia from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries—that is, before the arrival of the Western colonial powers? We typically use European history and European ideas as the basis for thinking about world history and international relations. Ideas that emanated from the 1688 Peace of Westphalia include the independent sovereignty of each nation-state, the inherent equality of those nation-states, and “balance of power.” But, it may be that th...

Book Review Essay, Resources

Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society

by David P. Janes

VICTORIA BESTOR, THEODOREC. BESTOR, AND AKIKO YAMAGATA, EDITORS NEW YORK: ROUTLEDGE, 2011 344 PAGES, ISBN: 978-0415436496, HARDCOVER Reviewed by David P. Janes Educators seeking a text to introduce their students to Japan will find the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society unparalleled in both breadth and depth. The Handbook includes twenty-two chapters from leading scholars of Japan that cover an amazing range of topics, including Japanese language and politics, religion, law, ...

Essay, Resources

Using The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry in the Classroom

by Fay Beauchamp

TRANSLATED ANDEDITED BY J. P. SEATON BOSTON: SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, 2006 272 PAGES, ISBN: 978-1570628627, PAPERBACK Reviewed by Fay Beauchamp For The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry, Professor J.P. Seaton draws upon a lifetime of translating and teaching Chinese philosophical classics as well as off-beat poets who prefer as an artistic subject “a rat, with some scurry left in him” to “elegant dragons” (207). In his introduction and notes, Seaton’s high regard for teaching an...

Essay, Resources

Introduction to Contemporary Korean Ceramic Artists

by David McClelland, Mei-ling Hom

[caption id="attachment_10297" align="alignright" width="247"] Song il Geun is a sculptor and rice farmer in the rural Korean village where he grew up. his sculptures are mostly human figures with broad, exaggerated gestures that express unbounded emotion. this is his hand-built, multi-chambered wood kiln.[/caption] Mei-ling Hom is an artist and independent scholar. In 2007, she was awarded a Fulbright research grant to study and document contemporary Korean ceramics. She traveled for ten...

Curriculum Materials Review, Resources

Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons, 3rd edition

by Jeffrey L. Richey

JOHN G. BLAIR AND JERUSHA HULL MCCORMACK SHANGHAI: FUDAN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2010 635 PAGES WITH CD-ROM Reviewed by Jeffrey L. Richey Since ancient times, the peoples of what are now known as China and the West have gazed at one another across vast distances of culture and geography with intense interest, occasional enmity, and no small amount of exoticism. Han dynasty scholars wrote with wonder of the land of Daqin (Roman Syria), where seemingly every Chinese custom was turned upside down. Th...

Curriculum Materials Review, Resources

The Enduring Legacy of Ancient China

by Arthur Barbeau, Richard C. Marsh Jr.

Editor’s Note: Although published several years ago, Primary Source’s The Enduring Legacy of Ancient China text and accompanying CD-ROM have received accolades from teacher users and remains in publication. Art Barbeau, a China specialist who has worked with teachers, and Richard Marsh, an experienced social studies teacher, contributed the review that follows. PRIMARY SOURCE, INC., EDITORS NEW YORK: CHENG ANDTSUI, 2006 298 PAGES, ISBN: 978-0887275081, PAPERBACK Reviewed by Arthur Barbea...

Book Review, Resources

North Korean Posters: The David Heather Collection

by Barbara Swander Miller

DAVID HEATHER AND KOEN DE CEUSTER NEW YORK: PRESTELP UBLISHING, 2008 288 PAGES, ISBN: 978-3791339672, PAPERBACK Reviewed by Barbara Swander Miller Raw emotions, shockingly bright colors, and stylistically real design—if it weren’t for the subject matter, at first glance some students might believe they were thumbing through manga or a graphic novel. But a closer look at North Korean Posters, written by David Heather and Koen De Ceuster, reveals much more than fiction. Heather’s exte...

Book Review, Resources

To the Diamond Mountains: A Hundred-Year Journey through China and Korea

by Constance Vidor

BY TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI NEW YORK: ROWMAN& LITTLEFIELD, 2010 216 PAGES, ISBN: 978-1442205031, HARDBACK Reviewed by Constance Vidor Retracing the steps of historical travelers has become a popular scaffolding for travel, adventure, and historical narratives. This device allows the writer to present a region through the double vision of her own perceptions and those of the historical figure. The reader benefits from two sets of insights, each filtered through a different personality, each re...

Book Review, Resources

Modern East Asia

by Anne Prescott

BY JONATHAN LIPMAN, BARBARA MOLONY, AND MICHAEL ROBINSON NEW YORK: PRENTICE HALL, 2011 480 PAGES, ISBN: 978-0-321-23490-2, PAPERBACK Reviewed by Anne Prescott Modern East Asia is an engaging East Asia history textbook that offers a new approach to the topic and is suitable for both high school and postsecondary classes. It focuses on the history of China, Japan, and Korea (including North Korea and Taiwan) from 1600 to the present, with roughly two-thirds of the book devoted to the past 150 ...

Book Review Essay, Resources

Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power

by James R. Holmes

BY ROBERT D. KAPLAN NEW YORK: RANDOM HOUSE, 2011 366 PAGES, ISBN: 978-0812979206, PAPERBACK Reviewed by James R. Holmes Having taken a graduate-level political geography course in which the professor assigned a Robert Kaplan book as a text (The Ends of the Earth), assigned another to a class I was teaching (Warrior Politics, for undergraduate international affairs), and read still another as a primer on a region I was about to visit for the first time (Balkan Ghosts, for a US State Depar...

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.